1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a user support system, and in particular, it relates to a user support system interface with integrated FAQ and helpdesk features and a user support system that integrates user support request handling and FAQ maintenance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many websites have a FAQ (frequently asked questions) section to answer the most common customer questions. Many other websites have a helpdesk system where customers can send in their support questions and a technical support team will answer them, and track them by a server-generated ticket number. All the members of the technical support team can answer a given ticket because the entire thread is tracked by the ticket id, and thus the support load can be distributed among the entire technical support team.
Traditional FAQ systems are often frustrating to users when the FAQs do not contain the answer that the users are looking for. On the other hand, these FAQ systems tend to go out of date, since the support staff has little motivation to update these FAQs while they are swamped with fielding support requests.
Another issue with conventional user support operations is support staff training. Users can enter whatever question they want, which means support team members must know virtually everything about the product and provide answers that are consistent throughout the team. This makes training difficult, since new information and procedures about the product are constantly being generated, but that information does not always filter down to the first level support team members. A traditional solution to this problem is to have an internal database of answers which the support team members would copy and paste into their answers, and then modify them for the current users. This process can be cumbersome.
Another problem with the above system is that internal answers databases tend to get outdated and out of sync with the public FAQ database. This is because the team members who are handling the day to day support are often not the ones qualified to write template answers for an entire support system. These first line support team members know where the FAQ and internal answer database can be improved, but lack the ability, authority, or even desire to update them since they're often on a different system. On the other hand, senior support staff does not handle day to day support by definition (or if they do, this is very expensive to the company). They have the ability, but not the knowledge of what to update.